Alien Outback

Description

Alien Outback is an arcade shooter in the style of the classic arcade game Space Invaders and the audio game Troopanum. Your avatar in the game is Busha Bob, a beer-drinking sheep rancher who happens to shoot down an alien ship on his way home from the Town n' Country pub. Borrowing the fully equiped (and somehow still functional after being shot down?) alien ship, you now have to fight off the alien invasion.

The gamplay consists of moving the ship left and right along the ground with the left and right arrow keys. At the same time, aliens descend from the top of the playfield. Once an alien ship is right above you (the sound of the alien ships in the center of your speakers), you press the left CONTROL key to fire your lasers straight up to make the kill. All alien ships try to land on the ground, which is audible by a pitch-descending sound. If an alien ship manages to land on the ground, you'll need to pick it off with a side shot using your side lasers by holding down the left ALT key and pressing either the left or right arrow keys. This is certainly not a luxury feature because the aliens can get quite good in landing their ships. It is also possible to shoot sideways while moving. You do this by pressing the left ALT key will fire off a side laser in the direction that you're moving without stopping your ship. The advantage to moving and shooting sideways is that the game play is more fluid and you can pick off landers while setting up vertical shots. Alien Outback features eight different ship, each with unique abilities. To make it extra tough for Busha Bob, the playfield is surrounded by billabongs that excist on either side of the playfield (audible by the sound of crickets and other swamp creatures). If you move too far to either side of the playing field, your ship will receive damage and will drain your energy reserves. Likewise, if an alien ship happens to hit you with a laser, you will lose energy and if a lander makes it to the ground and approaches you, it will zap you with an energy depleting charge. If your energy reaches zero, you're history! The current energy level can be heard by pressing the END key.

Alien Outback features eight different types of power ups. These power ups might simply give you bonus points, extra energy, or a special item to use right away or saved for an opportune time. Power ups are dropped from flying saucers (throwing out their garbage?) that occasionally travel from one side of the playing field to the other on the regular waves. If you manage to hit it, it'll drop a payload which lands on the ground to the left or right of you and will sound a beeping homing beacon. Thrust over to it quickly to grab it before it vaporizes and get it's associated bonus or power up. Alien Outback also features an advanced scoring system. There are four score modifiers that increase the regular value of each ships. You can also recieve bonuses for your gameplay, such as a bonus if you manage you shoot the alien wave without an alien touching the ground. After the game it is also possible to upload your score to the hi-score server.

Next to this all, Alien Outback provides its own music which even can be turned of during gameplay!

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additional resources

As with several other games, kelly sepergia has provided this extensive review of the game for the main menue internet radio program. It shows busher bob blasting a good few of the pesky alien hoards in his ship and comments on many aspects of game play.

The game is played by Gorthalen and Pitermach on their random Pg13 Podcast, as part of a general podcast about space invaders audio games, you can Find it here.